WOW! Activision caught in a Blizzard: Warcraft and Guitar Hero, label mates under new gaming giant!

WOW! Yikes. As if online RPG World of Warcraft; affectionately known as Warcraft, and Guitar Hero weren’t big enough as it is! Gaming giants Activision, makers of the ever-popular Call Of Duty series of games, alongside Blizzard; the now ‘mega-rich’ makers of World of Warcraft have merged to create what will possibly be the biggest game developer that the gaming community has ever witnessed!

In a move that probably didn’t come as shocking as it could have, considering the reign game developers such as Electronic Arts (EA) have long held in the gaming industry, Activision is definitely merging with Vivendi Entertainment, gaming parent of Sierra, Blizzard and more! According to Vivendi’s press release, quote “Vivendi will contribute its Vivendi Games business, which it valued at $US8.12 billion, and provide $US1.73 billion in cash for the 52 per cent stake in Activision Blizzard. These terms value the combined company at $US18.9 billion.” unquote.

Now here’s the rub. Vivendi - parent company of Blizzard, which makes the uber-popular subscription-based role-playing-game (RPG) World of Warcraft - has 9.3 million subscribers worldwide. Activision, on the other hand, makers of the highly-successful Guitar Hero and first-person-shooter (FPS), ‘Call Of Duty’, posted net revenues of $1.5 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2007 and if that wasn’t enough, has more than 2000 employees wordwide! Talk about a lethal combination!

Seriously though… How cool could the outcomes of all this be?!? I mean think about it!? Overnight, big wigs at the new camp could be coming up with new game titles. Perhaps something like this:

• Crash Bandicoot’s Guitar (a mix of Crash Bash and Guitar Hero?)
• Call of Warcraft - a role-playing-game which is setup as a first-person shooter. Now that’s WoW!
• Tony Diablo - a mix of skateboarding, magic spells and demons - of course!
• True Crimes: 50 Cent - a mix of Sierra’s (Vivendi) 50 Cent game with Activision’s True Crimes series.

So what do you reckon? This must ultimetly mean good news for games. Will the now cool-sounding Activision Blizzard take my possible game titles above and put them to good use? Do we really need another game giant? Will EA run out of business? Share your thoughts!